One of the nation’s top national polling firms had its eyes on Missouri politics in the past week, and the results created quite a bit of a political buzz.
Outside of Missouri, that is.
Public Policy Polling (PPP) released four statewide polls taken last week:
• One showing Sen. Claire McCaskill virtually deadlocked with any of three potential GOP challengers for her 2012 re-election bid;
• A second finding that President Barack Obama is trailing against any major GOP hopeful not named Sarah Palin (who he leads by three points) among Missouri voters;
• A third showing that, unlike McCaskill, quasi-Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon holds a bit of a lead against two top GOP challengers;
• A fourth indicating that likely GOP primary voters narrowly favor Mike Huckabee (27 percent) as their choice over Sarah Palin (25 percent), with Newt Gingrich (17 percent) and Mitt Romney (14 percent) trailing them.
• The fourth poll also found former Sen. Jim Talent,who lost his seat to Sen. McCaskill in 2006, is far ahead of his challengers, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder and former treasurer Sarah Steelman, for the GOP Senate nomination.
While the poll generated coverage on some top national political sites, including Roll Call, National Journal and TPM, it was virtually ignored in Missouri (unless it's our search engines, not local media, that have gone to sleep on the job).
Our friends at the Riverfront Times did have one dispatch from PPP’s polling.
Certainly the 2012 elections are too early to call, but even meaningless data is better than no data at all for political junkies.
Those not covering the polls missed a great factoid: In PPP’s Republican-voter-only sample, it found 77 percent called themselves “conservative,” 21 percent self-identified as “moderate,” and yes, 1 percent liberal.
They found a liberal Republican in Missouri!
Call the archaeologists.
